


The Legend of Merlin

by Laramie



Series: Queering the Airdot [1]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-17 23:56:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7291318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laramie/pseuds/Laramie





	1. Chapter 1

"Mum," Gwen began, tucking into her fish fingers with gusto. "Why do people keep calling me a girl?"

Carolyn looked up from her own piece of haddock. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Auntie Ruth said I'm a very pretty girl and Mr Tate said football isn't for girls."

Carolyn, unusually, was a bit stuck for what to say. Beyond the sexism in Mr Tate's remark (and you could bet she'd be having a word about that), she couldn't see any particular problem with what Gwen had just told her. "Who's Mr Tate?"

"My English teacher." Gwen stuck another forkful of fish into her mouth and mumbled through it: "He reads Matilda to us on Fridays."

"Don't speak with your mouth full, dear."

-

"You're not getting those shorts and that's final!" Gordon thundered in the middle of Next. "You're ten years old and it's time you stopped acting like a tomboy. Everyone will laugh at you if you turn up at big school looking like that!"

"Sorry, dad," Gwen hastened to say. "Sorry." She put the shorts back on the boy's rail and trailed obediently after her father as he led her towards the more _suitable_ clothes.

-

When Carolyn got home, the house was eerily quiet. Gwen was usually making enough noise to wake the dead with her Barbies and her music, and would race downstairs when Carolyn got home to make her a cup of tea.

In the living room, Gordon sat stewing over a mug of coffee and scowling. That perhaps explained the quiet; he hated Gwen to make too much noise. Plus, it wasn't uncommon for him to blow up over some small thing Gwen had done, leaving her scurrying to her bedroom, out of the way. He hadn't always been like this.

Carolyn made her way upstairs without disturbing Gordon, pausing at the top of the flight as her eyes registered something surprising: Gwen's door was shut.

Carolyn knocked gently. "Gwen, dear?"

"Yeah?" her voice was flat.

"Can I come in?"

"Oh, of course!"

Carolyn opened the door. Gwen was sitting cross-legged on her bed, an unopened copy of The Sheep-Pig resting on her ankles. The plug for the stereo on her bedside table was missing. Her hair looked as though it had been ravished by a wild beast.

"What on earth has happened to your hair?"

Gwen hung her head. "I wanted to cut it, but dad said he wouldn't take me to the hairdresser, so I thought I'd make it easier for him and do it myself. Only I don't think he liked it."

Carolyn went and sat on the edge of the bed next to Gwen. "It looks like a bear's been chewing on your head," she said bluntly.

"Oh," Gwen said sadly.

"I'll take you to the hairdresser tomorrow and we can get it fixed. I'm sure they can turn it into a nice pixie cut or something."

Gwen deflated further, her shoulders drooping. "Okay."

Carolyn looked at her twelve-year-old daughter for a long moment. "When you were about six, you asked me why people kept calling you a girl. Is that why you cut your hair?"

Gwen shook her head, eyes fixed on the book cover in front of her. "No. I just wanted short hair. Loads of girls at school have it."

That would have been a far more convincing argument had Gwen shown any interest in conforming with other children before.

-

Carolyn finally left Gordon when Gwen was 16. It had been a long, long time coming. The divorce was dragged out (mostly by Gordon) long enough for it to be hanging over Gwen's 18th, though Gwen seemed perfectly cheerful.

-

Now aged 24, Gwen once again sat opposite Carolyn eating dinner. This time, they were both eating shepherd's pie.

"Why do they call it shepherd's pie?" Gwen asked.

"Perhaps somebody stole one from a shepherd."

"You know when I was six and I asked you why people called me a girl?"

"Yes, dear."

Gwen was looking at her with big, nervous eyes. "It's because I knew I was a boy and I didn't understand why other people didn't see it."

"I thought as much," Carolyn admitted. "And do you still feel that way now?"

"Well, yes."

Carolyn reached out and patted Gwen's hand. "That's fine, dear. I loved you as my daughter - and I won't love you any less just because it turns out you're my son."

-

"I don't know what to call myself," Gwen said one day, fork poised over the microwave meal he was supposed to be piercing. It was a long flight, a few weeks after their conversation over dinner. He hadn't said anything about pronouns yet, but Carolyn had a feeling he was going to as soon as he had had chance to tell Douglas and Martin, so she was trying to be prepared.

"How about 'Gawain'?" Carolyn suggested. "You can change from being a witch to a knight."

Gwen's eyes lit up at the mention of knights and witches. Carolyn had to remind him to get on with the catering.

Once the package was safely in the microwave, Carolyn asked, "What do you think of 'Gawain', then?"

"I don't know... I think it's a bit too similar." He seemed a bit distant for a while, as though he was daydreaming again.

The microwave beeped, and Gwen suddenly yelled, "Arthur!"

"Unless you've smuggled a cat on board again, there are no Arthur's on the plane," Carolyn pointed out.

"No, but I could be Arthur! Like in Quest for Camelot! Gawain's just a knight but Arthur's the king!"

"Arthur," Carolyn mused, and smiled. "I like it."

-

"Here's your dinner, chaps, and also I'm not a woman and can you call me Arthur please?"

The two pilots looked at him blankly for a moment, which probably wasn't a great idea when they were flying an aeroplane. Arthur wondered if he should have waited until later, but he was just so excited!

"Are you - what's the word - cosplaying?" Douglas asked.

"How do you know about cosplaying?" Martin demanded of him.

"I get about," Douglas replied airily. "Plus, I have a teenage daughter begging me for an Amy Pond costume."

"I'm not cosplaying," Arthur put in. "What I mean is - you know how you're a man?"

"Well spotted," drawled Douglas.

"And Martin, you're a man."

"Debatable," Douglas put in.

"Well, I am too! Only a different type, I suppose. Everyone's different, really, aren't they? Anyway, that's what I wanted to tell you. And ask you to call me he. And my name's Arthur, like the king!"

"Of course we will," Martin agreed, and gave Arthur the smile that made it look like his freckles were sparkling.

"And will this promotion to kingship come with any improvement in culinary skills?" asked Douglas.

"No," Arthur said, confused.

"Pity."

 


	2. Chapter 2

Mum had helped.

In fact, at twenty-eight, Arthur was yet to go to the doctors on his own. But he had explained his problem to the doctor, who had known him since he was little and was very gentle with him. She asked him some questions and wrote his answers on a piece of paper and said she would refer him to the specialists.

Then it was just a question of waiting. And waiting. And waiting some more.

Mum said he had at least 12 months to wait, which was torture, especially with all the passengers he had to deal with every day. She said it would go by quicker than he thought, but Arthur wasn’t convinced, especially with how long it took to get the letter confirming his referral two weeks later. They wouldn’t  _ really _ make him wait 12 months, would they? He wasn’t even sure he would last that long.

Martin and Douglas helped too. They knew everything. Douglas vanquished any of the passengers who were mean to him like he was a knight in a story and Martin offered to put a countdown on the wall chart. But Arthur didn’t know which date to count down to yet so Martin wrote out a countUP instead, for how long it had been since his referral.

_ 1 month. 2 months. 3 months. _

It took at least a year to get to that first month. It took a decade to get to the second. It took a whole century to get to the third.

It only got worse when Arthur realised the count was also torturing him with how long he had been waiting to tell Martin that he liked him. A lot. Well, loved him, really. But Arthur didn’t want to tell him until he looked a bit more like the man he was inside. He knew Martin was bisexual, but that wasn’t the point. If Martin ever agreed to go out with him, Arthur wanted to be sure that he liked the man he was, not the woman he currently felt that he looked like. But testosterone would fix that. When he could eventually get it.

The fourth month took a millennium.


End file.
